Will Getting City Data Get Any Easier?

 

The agenda for the September 28^th edition of Thunder Bay City Council includes a discussion of the “Open Data Portal” whose purpose is: “…is to establish a framework for making City data open and available to citizens, organizations, and businesses by minimizing barriers so that they can benefit from the information and add value to it.” What does this entail? Well, as described by the policy document:

 

The City will:

·      Maintain an open data licence and other relative information on the Open Data Portal.

·      Maintain an online Open Data Portal with a listing of all Open Data available and links to download each dataset.

·      Proactively make Data available to the public on the Open Data Portal.

·      Where available, include Metadata for each Dataset with information such as how the data was collected, when the data was last updated, and the expected update frequency of the dataset.

·      Engage in dialogue with the community regarding data needs and requests.

·      Prioritize and evaluate requests for Open Data from citizens in accordance with City policies and priorities and based on the readiness and suitability of the Datasets for public release. 

This appears to be a sort of Data liberation initiative and if the policy is to be taken at its word, then it should be a welcome addition to the City of Thunder Bay’s website.  However, one hopes that there is a discussion this evening that provides examples of what type of data will be released?  Will it be aggregate results on a neighborhood level of assorted city surveys that have been done over the years? Will we finally be getting staffing level information on a departmental basis and over time so that meaningful comparisons can be done?  What does “machine readable” mean in terms of what the City makes available?  Is it only csv or excel files or will some type of proprietary software package be needed that users will have to purchase from the City of Thunder Bay even if the data is “free”?  What exactly will the decision process be as to what data to release and what variable swill be made available?

One worries that when governments commit to “open data” the public access will become harder rather than easier despite the intent of any legislation.  Indeed, the statement that users: “Not misrepresent the information or its use” sounds like an effort to control what is done and that there will be decisions made based on the "need to know."  After all, if someone draws a conclusion from statistical analysis as to what trends are in employment or financial data that City Council or its administrators do not like or agree with, does that constitute differing empirical analysis or “misrepresentation”? 

Municipal data is already notoriously difficult to come by.  Financial and budgetary information or employment level data even if available is not transparent or easy to understand and one is often left to external sources for data that facilitates comparison of Thunder Bay’s municipal finances to other jurisdictions – such as the annual report put together by BMA consulting. True, one can go onto the Ministry of Municipal Affairs site to access the FIR data on finances, but it is not easy to use either.

So, an Administrative Open Data Committee is going to be established that will decide all of this stuff and it will: “Engage in dialogue with the public and dataset requestors as needed to get additional information and provide status about requests submitted through the open data request form on the City of Thunder Bay Website. Work with the appropriate staff from each department to document, prioritize and evaluate requests for Open Data in accordance with City policies and priorities and based on the readiness and suitability of the datasets for public release.” It would be interesting to know what datasets the city even has? 

As always, the devil is in the details.  Statistics Canada is notorious for starting and then abruptly ending data series making it difficult to construct consistent time series.  One wonders if the City is planning to provide more detailed data on things like properties in tax arrears, or how many complaints come in with respect to certain issues. For example, I would be interested in knowing how many reports have been made of pinhole leaks to the City of Thunder Bay?  Surely, knowing how many reports have been received per month over the last two years is not something that does not “respect the privacy of individuals whose information is reflected in the City Datasets.”   

My guess is that this Open Data Committee is going to take a long time to set the parameters.

 

 

Canadian Universities and COVID-19: Apocalypse ... Not?

 

 The academic year at Canada’s universities is well underway albeit in a mainly online/remote format.  It has been an extraordinary transition on the part of faculty and staff accomplished on fairly short notice. Developing or converting materials from a classroom lecture format to a more structured online delivery system has been very time intensive.  An online course requires substantially more time on the part of instructors for organization and development and it is also more work for the students taking the course.  Unlike a classroom environment where the instructor can tailor the pace of weekly delivery to accommodate progress and needs, the weekly online modules once set with their materials, schedules, quizzes and assignments, can move forward quite relentlessly. 

 

 Interestingly enough, universities have been pressuring their faculty for years to do more online because of the supposed flexibility it affords students and the anticipated “efficiencies” but this year’s rapid transition has revealed the mixed blessing that online university teaching is.  It turns out that doing online teaching well is a bit more complicated than simply piling everyone into Zoom lectures.  It helps to have infrastructure that does not collapse when too many users sign on.  It also helps to have supports for faculty and staff doing the teaching like proper computer equipment, but six months in everyone is pretty much still on their own at home improvising as they go along.  And it turns out Zoom lectures and Zoom office hours are about as well attended as regular classes - I will leave that to the reader to interpret as they wish.

 

Of course, much of the interest this year has focused on the apparent financial effects on universities from COVID-19.  In the spring, there was much widespread speculation that enrolment was going to collapse as domestic students stayed home and international students were unable to come back into the country and some institutions began pre-emptive action.  It turns out that this did not exactly come to pass.  Across the country, enrolments appear to be stable or even higher than anticipated at many universities and even international students have been able to register for courses online.  Even at Lakehead, overall enrolments are stable as the accompanying figure showing recent numbers to date suggests.  Indeed, the bigger long-term problem is not overall enrolment collapse but universities competing with themselves for students by expanding online enrolment and poaching students from each other.

 

 

 

With the enrolment apocalypse over for the time being, the media doom frenzy is focusing on other financial effects like “half-full” residences and “shuttered” food services and the “decline in public funding”.   However, with fewer students on campus, there are also fewer costs particularly in staffing like food services and cleaning much of which has been contracted out.  Moreover, with everyone working from home, heating, air conditioning and hydro costs are reduced.  And, as for the decline in public funding, that has been underway for some time.  Governments have wanted universities to reduce their dependence on public funding and as a result universities  have raised tuition fees, recruited more international students and branched out into research and ancillary fees for additional revenue.   

 

Essentially, our universities are really no longer publicly funded but publicly assisted and the bigger question is why some of our universities have not simply taken a leap and gone completely private?  Part of the answer is probably that governments cannot leave things well enough alone.  Even if universities went private, governments would probably continue to regulate tuition for political reasons as they do now thereby ham-stringing university operations just as they do now.

 

The other interesting development is that our governments are continually telling us they have your back and how they are there to support you  and yet despite a nearly $400 billion dollar deficit at the federal level and multi-billion dollar deficits provincially - shoveling all types of money out to individuals and businesses – still no real support package for universities.  Given that universities have held their own on enrolment, one might expect a little help to deal with fixed costs and the decline in revenues from ancillary services.  Public funding for universities peaked in 2010-11 and has declined since, a little bit of help during the pandemic is not unreasonable.

 

Yet, it appears that universities are on their own.  Governments generally do not like things they cannot fully control and recruit for their political purposes and university academics generally fall into that category.  Governments have been given carte blanche in their approach here because the public supports them.  The general public essentially perceives academics as public school teachers with a longer summer vacation. It still amazes me how many people ask me every September if I have gone back to work.  I have given up explaining what I do – it is a lost cause.   

 

At the same time, the public perception is understandable.  University employment is a good job. Academics like their work and that probably does generate envy given that many people do not enjoy their jobs.  However, what academics do is still work and just because faculty like their job should not represent an opportunity to make them miserable.  Indeed, academics are not the only ones with good jobs at a university – they are actually outnumbered by staff and administrators who also have nice jobs and working conditions because students come to the university to take courses taught by academic faculty.  Which brings me to my next point…

 

Compounding all of this is the opportunity that COVID-19 has provided to university boards and administrations.  Despite the fact that enrolment is stable or rising at many institutions in the wake of COVID, the continued doom mongering is a useful tool for extracting concessions.  Indeed, during a pandemic, one might expect a pull back from mercenary behaviour, but it appears that across the country, those university faculty associations unfortunate enough to have their contracts expire during the pandemic are facing particularly brutal demands for concessions on the part of university administrations.  Apparently, despite the theatrical performances of our prime ministerial soliloquist in chief in Ottawa, we are not all in this together. 

 

Deficits, Inflation and Interest Rates: A Very Simple Analysis

 

The immediate impact of COVID-19 on Canada’s economy - like many others - has been a drop in GDP and a massive ramping up of government deficits given the collapse in revenues and in increase in emergency spending and benefits.  At the federal level, the deficit for 2020 is anticipated to be closer to $400 billion. In the wake of Wednesday’s Throne Speech there should be a fiscal update or budget that will provide further fiscal details.  In the meantime, it is worth thinking a bit about what the ultimate impact of such large deficits will be not just in Canada but on the world economy.

 

The traditional aggregate demand(AD)-aggregate supply(AS) framework for looking at fiscal and monetary policy suggests that large deficits will shift AD to the right and raise price (P) and output (Y).  The increase in prices then triggers inflationary expectations which shifts the aggregate supply curve upwards starting a wage-price spiral.  Bringing inflation under control ultimately then requires tighter monetary policy that raises interest rates and brings down aggregate demand and inflationary expectations. It all seems simple enough except since 2008-09, the massive deficits incurred around the world do not seem to have done any of this.  Indeed, inflation is low and interest rates have gone lower.  The world is awash in cheap money.  And, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has been gaining ground with arguments that we can stimulate demand practically forever by having sovereign governments with their own currency increasing the money supply.

 

I think if we had to draw a picture of the global economy under the current situation, it looks something like this (Figure 1):

 

 

 

If we think of the world economy as a giant AD and a giant AS curve, the AD curve has a traditional downward slope, but the AS curve is flat rather than upward sloping or vertical.  That is, world aggregate supply as a result of integrated international supply chains, trade, increasing capital mobility, technology and digitization – essentially the results of globalization since the 1990s – has become perfectly elastic.  As a result, even with deficits and cheap money shifting that aggregate demand curve repeatedly to the right, there has been no inflationary pressure.  Supply has expanded to accommodate demand and hence inflation has stayed low and there has been no upward pressure on interest rates.

 

This means that in a sense we are going to be able to both have our cake and eat it for some time.  Inflation will probably not rear up its head anytime soon and interest rates are going to stay low and probably below the rate of economic growth meaning that governments will not face immense debt service or debt burdens from their massively expanding debt.  However, I think eventually, the global economy is going to more likely start to resemble Figure 2 down below:

 

 

 

While one can argue that the economy has always been global, modern economic history has been marked by two distinct periods of globalization: 1870 to 1914 and 1990 to 2016.  The first great globalization coincided with the hegemony of the Pax Britannica, the  industrial age and the liberalization of the world economy which came to a crashing halt with World War I and which then took decades to resume.  After the shocks and trauma of trade restrictions, world wars, political extremism and the Depression, the post-World War II era saw slow steps to more trade and the fall of the Berlin Wall marks the start of the second age of globalization and trade liberalization which moved together with the internet and rapid technological change in communications, and China’s rapid industrialization and development. Much of this growth of trade occurred under the hegemony of the Pax Americana and included shifting of production to lower labour cost environments.  This age was dealt a blow by the 2008-09 recession and came to an end with the rise of populism and trade restrictions which officially begin with the election of Donald Trump in 2016 and the American retreat from a more global role.

 

The second great globalization essentially flattened the aggregate supply curve which is why inflationary pressure has been muted.  Because of technological change, improved transport and communications, the shifting of production to the cheapest spot with integrated supply chains, and freer trade – the aggregate supply curve became perfectly elastic and able to accommodate rising AD at an almost infinite pace.  However, we are now in a volatile  transition period that has been aggravated by the pandemic. Since 2016, there have been more trade disputes, concern and push back against China’s seeming unwillingness to play by the rules of a more liberal-democratic world economic order, and trade disruption by populist politicians.  The end result of this will be an AS curve marked by higher costs of production with output expansion – in other words, more of an upward sloping curve. 

 

The result of expanding demand with an upward sloping AS curve will be rising prices and hence the return of inflation.  Combine this upward pressure on prices with eventual competition for borrowers to take on more and more government debt and there will be a rise in interest rates.  The events of the last five years have ensured that interest rates will rise – it is not a question of if but when.

Dealing with Legacies: Victoriaville Edition

 

The 1960s and 1970s spawned the era of urban renewal and in Thunder Bay the result was two projects which left a legacy of costs and expenses and mixed results – the downtown urban renewal malls.  On the north side was Keskus and on the southside it was Victoriaville.  These were the legacy projects of their day designed to reverse the retail exodus from downtown and restore them to their former glory. 

 

The projects were slowly strangled by demographics as middle class residents moved to suburban areas and out of the downtown residential area, the rise of the intercity shopping area, cross-border shopping and most recently internet shopping.  Victoriaville in particular was also hurt by the malls locational position that blocked the corner of Victoria and Syndicate – akin to putting a shopping mall right on the intersection of Dundas and Yonge in Toronto or James and King in Hamilton.  Many cities had downtown urban renewal mall projects but Victoriaville was unique in how its design essentially killed traffic flow.

 

The two projects were also not helped by the loss of key anchor stores be it Eaton’s on the north side in the 1990s or Chapples on the south side during the recession and high interest rates of the early 1980s.  The north side mall eventually made way for a casino and downtown redevelopment centred around waterfront tourism.  The south side mall lingers on, given life support by the location of city government services and community functions.  However, its days appear to be numbered as Thunder Bay City council will debate its future Monday evening.

 

A report being discussed presents four redevelopment opportunities for the area:

 

Options 1A & 1B: Revitalize the existing infrastructure through retaining the existing building and either revitalizing the retail components or repurposing the existing space; (Cost: 1A-$34,860,000 or 1B-$15,360,000).

Option 2: Reconfigure the existing infrastructure, reopen Victoria Avenue, and maintain a portion of the existing structure on Syndicate Avenue south of Victoria Avenue; (Cost:$22,490,000) and,

Option 3: Remove the existing infrastructure, reopen Victoria Avenue, and re- energize public spaces on Syndicate Avenue.(Cost: $10,750,000).

 

Options 1A and 1B essentially will keep the mall on top of the intersection, option 2 reopens Victoria but maintains Syndicate as blocked while option 3 reopens Victoria Avenue and reopens Syndicate fully but to “reenergized public spaces” which it appears means some type of pedestrian traffic but not vehicles.  The report does not address the attached McKellar Mall – which is full of City offices for the most part and will continue on.

 

My guess is that there were be some support for 1B tomorrow night because City Councillors know that Victoriaville has to go but they still want to be seen as “constructive” and investing in the area’s activities and 1B allows them to both get rid of Victoriaville and pretend they are replacing it with another legacy.  Option 2 will probably have a bit more support from those who like option 1B because it costs only a ‘bit more” but allows for a more innovative looking “legacy.”  However, the best choice of the four is the last one – Option 3 and not because it is the cheapest but because it is the one that opens up the intersection the most though Syndicate is only going to be fully open as a pedestrian space.  The intersection is much like a key artery and the blockage needs to be removed if there is any hope of more robust activity emerging in the area. 

 

Even with the intersection opened up, the area is so far gone that it may likely never regain even a semblance of its former glory.  Indeed, there are now too many competing interests for retail and office activity in Thunder Bay’s dispersed urban pattern to expect that much more will happen in the former Fort William downtown aside from government and social services.  The best option is actually not there – Option 4: fully open up the intersection by removing the Syndicate Avenue parking ramp and making Syndicate a full street again just like that planned for the reopened Victoria.  This is an option given that the very end of the report argues that the parking ramp can be relocated. 

 

Given the current division of Council into fiscal realists and legacy investors, I would day that Option 3 will get five to six backers, while the remaining support will fracture between Option 1B and Option 2.  Having four choices does not provide for a clear voting and decision process so getting to a final choice is likely to be messy.  The only certainty is that cleaning up this legacy project is going to cost money no matter which way you look at it.  Given that Mayor Mauro is on the record as stating that the last couple of years have seen “reasonable” tax increases, get ready for the 2021 “unreasonable” increase.

 

 

Looks Like a Second Wave

Ontario's COVID-19 daily case numbers have now been trending up since August and the most recent plot and LOWESS smooth I have put together shows an upward trajectory as steep as the first wave.  Moreover, it is a pretty tight fit around the trend line - little dispersion.  That could be the result of more substantial and consistent testing as opposed to the first wave, or it could mean a more persistent and ingrained wave is underway.  The only silver lining to date is that deaths have not taken a similar upward spike.

Thinking Big in Thunder Bay

 

Thunder Bay City’s Council’s agenda for September 14^th based on the available documentation has quite a few items that one imagines will have cost implications for Thunder Bay though the full documentation as of Saturday morning seems a bit light on the City website.  The usual tomes of several hundred pages seem to be absent but perhaps they will be posted later.  Nevertheless, from the very brief documents available, some of the issues:  Traffic Signal Review, Boulevard Lake Cleanup & Dredging, Police Facility Needs Assessment Update, Solid Waste Management Strategy Update, Homemakers Program, and a Transit Service Update.  There is even an eye on the future employment of our municipal councillors with a report on Municipal election readiness for 2022.  However, the issue that will probably chew up the most time is this:

 

Permanent Thunder Bay Word Sign

Memorandum from Councillor S. Ch'ng dated August 18, 2020 containing a motion recommending the design and installation of a Permanent “Thunder Bay” Word Sign at the waterfront.

(Pages 74 – 75)

With respect to the memorandum from Councillor S. Ch’ng dated August 18, 2020, we recommend the design and installation of a Permanent “Thunder Bay” Word Sign at the waterfront;

AND THAT up to $100,000 of funding be approved through the City’s unallocated Municipal Accommodation Tax funds for the design and installation of the Permanent “Thunder Bay” Word Sign;

AND THAT any necessary by-laws be presented to City Council for ratification.

 

The Northwood councillor wants to design and build a sign, similar to ones seen in cities around the world, including Toronto. This has already received some local media attention and of course many comments and a TBNewswatch poll that suggests the idea is almost as popular as going ahead full bore with the Turf Facility was.  

 

Predictably, there has been a focus on the cost which at $100,000 has struck many as excessive but then our councillors will likely consider it a bargain given that replacing a similar sign in Toronto in front of their city hall with permanent new letters will cost $760,000.  At $100,000, Thunder Bay’s sign will only cost $10,000 per letter while Toronto’s will come in at $108,571.43 per letter.  Needless to say, our more mathematically inclined councillors will fall over themselves with long speeches on how much more efficient we are and the alphabetical value of money.

 

However, Thunder Bay likes to think big. Indeed, for $760,000, never mind a small piddly Toronto style sign – with that kind of money one could create a giant white letter Hollywood type sign on top of the Sleeping Giant in our harbour! Or perhaps, we could have a Mount Rushmore type set of carvings of all the members of our current City Council preserved forever in a pose of distant thoughtful gazes with a giant inscription below stating: “They came, they saw, they spent!”  Truly, this will be another opportunity for all of us to think big and achieve Toronto style ambition at Thunder Bay prices.

 

If members of council are inclined towards frugality, I would suggest that the letters of the proposed Thunder Bay Sign be made from the creative intertwining of all the surplus copper piping and water connection lines that seems to dot the lawns in so many of our neighborhoods these days.  Not only would this be very artistic and creative, but cost-effective and also an example of wise environmental stewardship as it involves a major effort at recycling.  Advertising is all about messages and this would send the message that in Thunder Bay, we recycle more than ideas.

 

Stuff My Students Say - Online Teaching Edition

 

Well, this was my first week of classes and all things considered, it went remarkably smoothly for me and about 95 percent of my students though there were a few glitches. Turns out my bright idea for separate google Gmail accounts for correspondence with each course does not work very well for large classes given Gmail’s mailout restrictions on personal accounts and my own university’s spam filter so I guess I am going to have to use my course mail mailer on D2L which is a bit cumbersome but it will have to do.  Most students appeared to get started on self-directed web based learning reasonably well. This is the approach I have opted for with informal office hour type Zoom sessions where there can be some personal interaction and questions answered.

 

A couple of things for your amusement based on this week's observations.

1) About 5 percent of the students generate 90% of your email. However, that can be a lot of email when you have 150 students and the same ones email you multiple times to make sure you got their message.

2) Many students do not read the course plan provided or anything else it seems including the instructions sent by the university.

3) I think a lot of students do not realize the size of the classes they are in, the limits of technology, and the limits to an instructor’s ability to deal with their issues:

 

Some examples:

 

"Looking at the course plan for your class and of my other classes all of the quizzes for Economics clash with my Marketing's quizzes. I hope we can find a solution on how to fit both course requirements to my schedule. If it helps Thursdays I'm free by 3:00 p.m. and Fridays my schedule is clear."

 

By the way, this was received after I told them in a revised course plan that there would now be a 24-hour window for getting your "1-hour "quizzes back.  It is a class of 130 students by the way…

 

Or, how about this:

 

"Thank you for your email. I had a question, do the activities on Mindtap count toward our final grades?"

 

While mindTap can be used for assessment, I have not done that.  Again, it is important to read the instructions that come with the course. The Course Plan says 4 quizzes and a final and Mindtap is a study guide resource for yourselves to help you learn on your own.  

 

“I have a question. I saw you posted the sample questions and quiz for the week 1. I wonder which one we need to submit? And how to do that? Thank you!”

 

But they are sample quizzes with the answers at the back for your own practice. Why would I give you a sample quiz and the answers and then ask for it back?

 

“I have registered for the course ECON 1100. Can you please tell me the timings of the class? as it is not showing in my course link website.”

 

It is a web-based course – i.e., in an earlier day and age it probably would be called a “reading” course. There are no class times. Perhaps students are confused by language such as synchronous and asynchronous learning (I know I am).  Not sure how the type of stuff is being communicated to them.

 

Some other ones:

 

“I was wondering if there is the possibility of completing one of your scheduled quizzes at a date which is earlier than specified. More specifically, I am referring to Quiz #2, if this makes a difference with anything. I would be looking to complete it a week earlier on the 14th or 15th of October. Obviously I am aware the material would be the same”

 

Again, this is a class of 130 and not a seminar course of 10 or 20.  

 

In response to an informal Zoom Meeting invite for a short voluntary non-mandatory “ informal office hour/getting to know you” session set for 11 am on a Monday:

 

“I may not be able to attend. As I work M to F 8 to 4pm.”

 

This was followed by a request from the student for a recording of the session and a link to it be sent.  To the student’s credit, upon further explanation, they realized that recording what are essentially interactions with other students in a question and answer session was understandably not a good idea.  There is indeed learning behavior on the part of students.

 

And my personal favorite:

 

“Will future all meetings happen on this day/at this time? I ask because I have nine hours of lectures starting at 11:30 on Mondays”

 

My sympathies are all with the student on this one.  What kind of Zoom lecture scheduling on the part of a university is that?

 

It is going to be a draining first term.

 

In Ontario, Its Back to School...and Back to COVID

As the September 2020 edition of Labour Day unfolds, the long summer of 2020 which for many students began in March, comes to an end in Ontario.  It is back to school at the elementary, secondary and post-secondary level and the rush to cram in as many outdoor social opportunities as possible during the good weather also comes to an end.  Like in many other parts of the world, the last few weeks have seen a relaxing of individual behaviour as also noted by pundits such as Andre Picard and the inevitable result has been a creeping up of the daily count of new cases.  The accompanying figure puts the start of the reversal of the downward trend at day 200 which coincides with about mid-August. 

While it appears the uptick in Ontario is being driven by GTA cases, as Picard himself notes, it is difficult to know exactly where or how people are being infected given the obsession of public health authorities in Canada with secrecy.  Sometimes, it would be nice to know when a case is reported in your community if it was due to international travel, inter-provincial travel, connected to a workplace or social event in an effort to personally gauge the threat level but such is not the case.  Of course, it is also difficult to know whether governments and public health agencies in Canada are being secretive or they simply do not have the capability to finely analyze and present data.  The latter possibility is even more disconcerting.

 

Back to school in Ontario will be interesting to watch unfold.  There apparently is a shortage of teachers given the anecdotal stories of retired teachers being phoned up and asked if they would like to come back this fall.  There is also a growing  shortage of school bus drivers.  And parents appear to be surprised that classes are as large as they are given that as much as one third of children will be doing their lessons online.  Of course, it is amazing how little people in general understand about resource allocation and basic economics.  Even online teaching requires teaching resources and they need to come from somewhere and given the anecdotally reported spate of sudden retirements it is no surprise that in-person classes are larger than expected.  Indeed, many JK and SK classes in particular are as large as previous years – that is to say 25 to 30 students.  It would be interesting to have more information and data about class sizes and their distribution, but provincial education ministries and school boards are as secretive as public health authorities.  If anything, the pandemic seems to have accelerated the tendency to less and less accountability on the part of government authorities when it comes to publicly available and accessible data and information. 

At the university level, the early cries of an enrollment collapse in the wake of COVID appear to have evaporated.  Overall enrollment in Ontario at the university level is holding its own and the numbers are good at both the domestic and international student level.  As of the August 2020 update, it would appear that  undergraduate confirmations are up at 107,001 from last year’s 104,635 – that is an increase of 2.2 percent and hardly the apocalyptic collapse many university administrations were articulating.  At my own university, as of this morning the total enrollment statistics showed the total enrollment down by several hundred but the system traditionally lags in presenting information which I think means that enrollment is pretty much on target.  My own first-year class is up 60 percent from last year while my upper year classes are either at the same level of enrollment or actually higher. 

It would appear that online education has actually had the effect of expanding choices for students because in person class schedules – especially at small universities with few sections - often meant there were scheduling conflicts.  I do recall in the past conversations with senior administrators chastising economics for its low undergraduate enrollment and never seeming to acknowledge the point that part of the problem was the class schedule itself given small departments and fewer sections of anything.  At Lakehead, more students seem to be opting for economics because they can actually fit it into their schedules this year. I suppose that is one proverbial silver lining to the COVID cloud.  The other is that universities – like other employers - have downloaded many of their costs onto people working at home and are saving a lot of money on their utilities and operating costs while keeping their tuition fee structure and other funding fully in place.  And unlike private employers, we are apparently not being provided with T2200  to help in the costs of any upgrading internet and computers at home to deal with larger classes.

So, it is September and once again the drama begins.  Another new school year but this time starting under conditions of a global pandemic.  Stay tuned.